Re: proc import - how to define char or numeric as char

A couple of possible solutions that individually, or combined, might
solve your problem.

First is to ensure that guessingrows is set to a high enough value to
capture the unreadable cells. Second is to ensure that mixed=yes is
set. Third, if you're on windows, check out the macro that data_null_
posted last year: http://www.listserv.uga.edu/cgi-bin/...s-l&D=1&O=A&P=...
or, in short form: http://xrl.us/bfa8qi

It provides a way to temporarily change the window's registry guessing
rows setting which, if not set high enough, makes the sas guessingrows
statement useless.

HTH,
Art
-------------
On Nov 25, 8:28 pm, zespri <stej...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi
>
> a few columns in Excel include both char and numeric, eg.
> variable date includes 10022009 (most of them in this format) and
> 10/02/2009 and 10.02.2009
> variable language includes English, Japanese, and 14, 19 (their code)
>
> list are very long, and I have a few Excel file to import into SAS.
>
> when I use proc import, it can't input these variables properly. May I
> ask how can I define them as character in the proc import process?
> then, I can handle them in SAS (as I have a lot of variables, using
> input variable name takes too much time)
>
> Thank you

Interesting macro but are you sure it only temporarily changes the
registry settings? It seems to create an execute a Windows script that
changes the registry settings but that would be permanent, wouldn't
it?

On 26 nov, 05:12, art...@NETSCAPE.NET (Arthur Tabachneck) wrote:
> A couple of possible solutions that individually, or combined, might
> solve your problem.
>
> First is to ensure that guessingrows is set to a high enough value to
> capture the unreadable cells. *Second is to ensure that mixed=yes is
> set. *Third, if you're on windows, check out the macro that data_null_
> posted last year:http://www.listserv.uga.edu/cgi-bin/...s-l&D=1&O=A&P=...
> or, in short form:http://xrl.us/bfa8qi
>
> It provides a way to temporarily change the window's registry guessing
> rows setting which, if not set high enough, makes the sas guessingrows
> statement useless.
>
> HTH,
> Art
> -------------
> On Nov 25, 8:28 pm, zespri <stej...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Hi
>
> > a few columns in Excel include both char and numeric, eg.
> > variable date includes 10022009 (most of them in this format) and
> > 10/02/2009 and 10.02.2009
> > variable language includes English, Japanese, and 14, 19 (their code)
>
> > list are very long, and I have a few Excel file to import into SAS.
>
> > when I use proc import, it can't input these variables properly. May I
> > ask how can I define them as character in the proc import process?
> > then, I can handle them in SAS (as I have a lot of variables, using
> > input variable name takes too much time)
>
> > Thank you